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Salem had always known that immortality was a curse. But in the early days, it was a curse she could bear. She had Ozma, after all. Not the Ozma she had loved in the beginning, but a version of him—reincarnated, stubborn, and eternally opposed to her. Their war was a constant, a dance that spanned centuries, and though it was bitter and relentless, it gave her purpose.
In those early millennia, the humans and faunus of Remnant thrived, fought, and evolved. Kingdoms rose and fell, technology advanced, and the world changed in ways that even Salem, with her endless years, found fascinating. But through it all, Ozma was there. He was her equal, her opposite, and her only tether to the world she had once known.
She hated him. She loved him. She needed him.
And so, their war continued.
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The first time Salem truly felt the weight of her immortality was not because of Ozma, but because of the humans and faunus she once ruled over. Over the millennia, they had changed. Their cultures, their languages, even their physical forms had shifted. The humans and faunus of old were gone, replaced by something new—a species that bore only a faint resemblance to their ancestors.
Salem watched as the last remnants of the world she had known faded away. The kingdoms of Vale, Atlas, Mistral, and Vacuo were now little more than myths, their names preserved only in ancient texts that no one alive could read. The Grimm still roamed the land, but they were no longer the monsters she had once commanded. They were wild, untamed, and indifferent to her existence.
And yet, Ozma remained. He was a constant, a relic of the past, just like her. Though his reincarnations had taken him further and further from the man he once was, he was still Ozma. He still fought her, still opposed her, and still reminded her of the life they had once shared.
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The humans and faunus of old were long gone. Their descendants had evolved into something entirely new—a species that no longer remembered the name "Remnant" or the war that had shaped its history. The Relics were lost, buried beneath layers of time and forgotten by all but Salem. The Maidens were gone, their powers dissipated into the ether. The Grimm had faded, their forms dissolving into shadows that no longer held any meaning. Even the relics had long since been out of her reach, she had tried to use it to bring back the brother gods and end her immortality. Some children had stopped her, she couldn't even remember how.
Ozma’s final incarnation was not a warrior, nor a hero, nor a king. He was a scholar, a quiet man who had spent his life studying the ruins of a world he no longer understood. When Salem found him, he was old and frail, his body failing him after centuries of reincarnation. He looked at her with tired eyes, and for the first time in millennia, there was no hatred in his gaze. Only resignation.
“It’s over, Salem,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “There’s nothing left to fight for.”
Some part of herself wanted to argue, to rage, to remind him of all the pain he had caused her. But she couldn’t. The world they had fought over was gone. The people they had fought for were gone. Even their war, their eternal struggle, had lost its meaning.
As Ozma's body took its final breath, something unexpected happened. His soul, so similar to hers after countless reincarnations, began to merge with her own. It was a strange sensation, like two rivers converging into one. For a moment, Salem felt a flicker of the man she had once loved, the man she had fought against for so long.
But the merge was not equal. Salem had lived for millennia, her soul weathered and hardened by the weight of eternity. Ozma’s soul, though ancient, was fragmented, scattered across countless lives. When the merge was complete, Salem remained herself, her consciousness dominant, her identity intact. Ozma’s essence was absorbed, becoming a part of her, but it did not change who she was.
For the first time in centuries, Salem felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time: completeness. Ozma was gone, but he was also with her, a part of her. And yet, she was still alone.
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The new species that had risen from the ashes of humanity and faunus were strange to Salem. They were not like their ancestors. They were taller, their features sharper, their minds more attuned to the world around them. They built cities that reached into the clouds and machines that defied the laws of nature. They were magnificent, in their own way.
But they were not hers.
Salem watched them from afar, a ghost haunting a world that no longer needed her. She had no place in their society, no role to play in their stories. They had no need for a queen, a witch, or a monster. They had outgrown her.
And yet, she remained. She wandered the ruins of the old world, the places where she and Ozma had once fought their battles. She visited the graves of her daughters, long since swallowed by the earth. She stood in the shadow of the Relics, now little more than forgotten artifacts in a world that had moved on.
She was a relic herself, a remnant of a time that no longer existed.
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The continents had shifted, the oceans had risen, and the world had changed in ways that even Salem could barely comprehend. The new species had flourished, then faded, replaced by another, and then another. Each iteration was more advanced than the last, but none of them lasted. They rose, they fell, and they disappeared, leaving behind only ruins and echoes.
Salem had stopped trying to keep track of them. They were all the same, in the end. Mortal. Fleeting. Temporary.
She had long since stopped interfering in their affairs. There was no point. They would destroy themselves, as they always did, and she would be there to pick up the pieces. But even that had lost its meaning. The Relics were gone, the Grimm were gone, and the war was over. There was nothing left to fight for.
And yet, she remained.
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The last of the new species died out, their cities crumbling to dust and their machines falling silent. The world was empty now, save for the creatures that had always been there—the animals, the plants, the insects. They thrived in the absence of sapience, reclaiming the land that had once been theirs.
Salem watched it all with detached curiosity. She had seen this before, countless times. Life would continue, in one form or another, until the end of time.
But she was tired. So very tired.
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The oceans dried up, the forests withered, and the world became a barren wasteland. The sun grew hotter, brighter, until it consumed everything in its path. Salem stood on the surface of the planet, watching as the last remnants of life faded away.
She had outlived them all. The humans, the faunus, the animals, the plants—all of them were gone. Only she remained.
And yet, she could not die. The curse of immortality bound her to this world, even as it crumbled around her.
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The planet was gone, swallowed by the sun. Salem floated in the void, untethered and alone. The stars burned brightly around her, but they too would fade, in time.
She had outlived the planet of remnant. But she had not outlived the universe. And still, she remained.
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Boiling alive for a billion years or so hadn’t been the best experience, but at least it had been something. Now she’d been hanging out on the surface of a white dwarf star for the past several billion years waiting for something, anything else to happen.
She’d witnessed a few supernovae, which were interesting but were barely a blip on the timescales she was used to. She had watched as the stars began to blink out, their fuel used up, but that was only the more massive stars. The red dwarfs were still around, and stellar remnants still gave off residual light.
She could feel the chaos around her still, though. She could feel the universe marching ever closer to its maximum entropy. And perhaps it was a bit silly, but the star she was on still reminded her of her first days, still reminded her of when humans were still around. She even had a husband back then or was he her greatest enemy? What was his name again? No matter. She’d stick around and wait.
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The last white dwarf had cooled to having a surface outside of the visible spectrum.
The universe had gone dark.
And still Salem waited.
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~10^100
Witnessing the decay of a black hole was a sight to behold.
A singularity, ordinarily something that did nothing but distort space so much that nothing could escape, could decay. It took an unfathomably long time for them to do so, but Salem had nothing but time.
Watching those explosions of light was one of the few things left to change in the universe. One of the few chaotic things left in this ever-colder universe. But the divine energies surrounding her curse were still around, tethering Salem to this star that once consumed the planet she used to live on.
She wondered if any particles that had been part of it were now some of the blackened carbon and oxygen beneath her feet.
Regardless, Salem waited.
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~10^10,000
The dead, darkened remains of what was once Remnant’s sun was no longer composed of carbon and oxygen. Random quantum tunneling events had, ever so slowly, transformed the dead star into a perfect sphere of pure Iron-56. Blithely, Salem tapped her foot against the metal star.
Predictably, without a medium, no sound was made. The immortal witch just shrugged and resigned herself to waiting even longer.
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~10^1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
The random quantum fluctuations had finally destroyed the ball of iron that used to be Remnant’s sun. All at once, the entire mass of the star suddenly compressed itself into a singularity, forming an event horizon about a kilometer in radius. And on a timescale that might as well have been instant from Salem’s new, long-term perspective, that new black hole decayed in a spectacular flash of light.
With the last vestiges of Remnant gone, the other stellar remnants of the universe followed. The universe had finally reached its entropic maximum. All particles were rushing away from each other at relative speeds higher than the speed of light. Nothing could interact with anything else ever again, so chaos was irrelevant. It was over.
The Brother Gods had kept their promise. She had endured, endured through everything. But now, there was nothing left to endure.
And so, at last, Salem closed her eyes and let go.
The universe had reached its end.
And Salem went with it.